Latin America has quietly become the most exciting payments region in the world. The methods that matter across LATAM are real-time bank transfers (led by Brazil’s Pix), digital wallets (Mercado Pago in Argentina), cash vouchers and instant systems in Mexico (OXXO, SPEI, CoDi), Colombia’s new Bre-B, and cards everywhere — all increasingly tied together by open finance. For any business taking payments in the region — online casinos included — the old assumption that “cards plus cash” is enough no longer holds. Here’s how the landscape actually looks.
Why LATAM payments matter now
Latin America has the highest projected real-time payments (RTP) growth of any region on earth — a compound annual growth rate of around 29% between 2022 and 2027. A continent that was heavily cash-based a decade ago is leapfrogging straight to instant, mobile, account-to-account payments, often faster than developed markets did. For merchants, that means local methods aren’t a nice-to-have; they’re the difference between converting a customer and losing one at checkout.
Brazil: Pix changed everything
No payment method anywhere has reshaped a country faster than Pix. Launched by Brazil’s central bank in 2020, the free instant-transfer system now has more than 170 million users and processed around R$35 trillion in 2025 — handling more transactions than credit and debit cards combined. In e-commerce, cards still narrowly lead, but Pix is closing fast and is projected to overtake them by 2027.
The system keeps expanding: Pix Automático, launched in June 2025, added recurring payments for subscriptions and bills. Cash-based Boleto is fading but not dead, and cards remain critical for installments. Brazil is also the global leader in open finance, with tens of millions of active data-sharing consents. For how this plays out in gambling specifically, see our deep dive on the top payment methods in Brazilian online casinos.
Mexico: cash is still king — for now
Mexico is the region’s most cash-dependent major market. A large share of the population is unbanked, which keeps cash-voucher systems like OXXO Pay — where a shopper prints a voucher and pays at a physical store — firmly relevant. But change is underway: SPEI handles interbank transfers, the central bank’s CoDi instant-payment system (inspired by Pix) is expanding, and neobanks like Nubank have signed up millions of users. Mexico is following Brazil’s path, just a few years behind.
Argentina: a digital-wallet market
Argentina’s story is wallets. Battered by high inflation, Argentinians moved to digital money quickly, and digital wallets are now the most-used payment method, holding around 46% share and projected to keep climbing. Mercado Pago dominates the ecosystem — the majority of online shoppers use it regularly — making wallet acceptance essential for anyone selling into the country.
Colombia: enter Bre-B
Colombia is the newest entrant to the instant-payments club. In June 2025, the Banco de la República launched Bre-B, an interoperable instant-payment system explicitly modelled on Pix. Account-to-account payments were a tiny slice of the market before it; Bre-B is designed to do for Colombia what Pix did for Brazil, alongside established wallets like Nequi and Daviplata.
Open finance ties it together
Underneath all of this is open finance — the regulated sharing of banking data that lets new services plug into existing accounts. Brazil leads the world here, and the model is spreading across the region. The result is a payments ecosystem that’s not just faster but more connected, enabling smarter checkout, better fraud control and new account-to-account products.
What it means for casino and gambling payments
For online casinos and sportsbooks, the implication is blunt: win on local payments or lose the market. In newly regulated Brazil, Pix is now the default way players deposit and (crucially) get paid out — instant, cheap and trusted. In Mexico, supporting OXXO and SPEI reaches the cash economy; in Argentina, Mercado Pago is non-negotiable; in Colombia, Bre-B is one to watch. Operators that lean on cards alone leave money on the table, which is why the most popular casino payment methods globally increasingly look regional, not universal. It’s a core reason LATAM has become such a magnet for operators, as our overview of iGaming success in LATAM explains.
Conclusion
LATAM payment methods are a study in leapfrogging: from cash to instant, account-to-account money in barely a decade, led by Pix and followed by Mexico’s CoDi, Colombia’s Bre-B and Argentina’s wallets. For the data behind the trend, PCMI and the Banco Central do Brasil are the authoritative sources. The takeaway for any business is simple — pay attention to local methods, because in Latin America they now win.
